Scooped and Weird – Can That Be the Right Sound for Neil’s Debut?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now

Many years ago we thought the early pressings of Neil Young’s first album, the ones using the original mix, had the best sound.

We realized — eventually — that we were way off the mark about that and took the time to write a couple of commentaries about that awful mix, explaining just how wrong we were.

However, the right mix only gets you so far. There are dozens of different pressings of this album, and most of them are not very good sounding. In our Hot Stamper listings we note as much:

The sound of the typical pressing leaves a lot to be desired. You get copies where Neil’s voice is so forward that it quickly becomes fatiguing and unpleasant. Many later pressings are just the opposite — Neil’s voice is so muffled he’s practically underwater, probably because those pressings are made from copy tapes of compromised fidelity.

It’s the rare copy that puts him in the right place, and even then there are still plenty of ways in which a copy can fall well short of the best.

We found a copy from the shootout pressed on the later tan label and it was really a mess. Nothing else in our shootout sounded quite like it.

It was just bizarre:

  • Scooped and weird
  • No upper mids but scratchy highs

Can you imagine playing a copy with sound this wrong and thinking you were hearing the album Neil recorded? That was Reprise in the mid-seventies — they could not care less what the old titles they were stamping out sounded like. Why should they? There wasn’t any money in it and nobody seemed to care one way or the other.

And it gets worse. Practically every reissue from 1976 on is every bit as bad. Here’s a typical Winchester pressing:

It would be hard to determine which one had the worst sound. I suppose with the right tone controls you could try to fix the WW pressing. The earlier pressing strikes me as a lost cause. (To get a better feel for scooped-out mids, here’s a good example, one that some audiophiles actually have in their collections, hard as that may be to believe.)

It took us a long time to figure out which pressings had the right sound for this music. If you want to do the same, the one thing I can tell you is that you definitely have your work cut out for you when it comes to this one. Good luck though. If you stick with it, you will surely learn a lot.

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The B-52s / Wild Planet

More New Wave Rock

  • Wild Planet returns to the site for the first time in years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage Warner Bros. pressing – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • Both of these sides are bigger and richer than practically all of what we played, and they also have more vocal presence and hard-rockin’ energy, two qualities that we found to be key to the best sounding pressings
  • 4 1/2 stars: “While Wild Planet is not the rarefied wonder their first platter is, it’s still darn good. The best songs here are ‘Private Idaho,’ a wonderfully jittery number that employs a variant on the famous melodic snippet from the Twilight Zone theme music, and ‘Devil in My Car,’ a delightfully loopy hoot that lays the craziness on very thickly.”

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Mussorgsky & Ravel – Pictures at an Exhibition

More of the Music of Modest Mussorgsky

  • With a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this British EMI import pressing is doing practically everything right
  • Our favorite performance by far, with big, bold and powerful sonics like no other recording we know
  • The brass clarity, the dynamics, the deep bass and the sheer power of the orchestra are almost hard to believe
  • No vintage recording of these works compares with Muti’s – and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite is an extra special added bonus on side two
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve awarded the honor of offering the best performances with the highest quality sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.
  • If you like orchestral spectaculars, have we got amazing sounding records for you

This EMI import pressing gives you the complete Pictures at an Exhibition with a top performance and superb sonics.

As this is my All Time Favorite performance of Pictures, this record naturally comes very highly recommended. Pictures is a piece of music that has been recorded countless times, and I’ve played scores of different recordings, but the only one that truly satisfies is this one, Muti’s 1979 recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Much like Previn and the LSO’s performance of The Planets, he finds the music in the work that no one else seems to.

A Must Own Classical Record

This orchestral spectacular should be part of any serious Classical Collection. Other Must Own classical recordings can be found here.

For his 1979 review of the Mussorgsky, Robert Layton in the GRAMOPHONE writes of Muti and The Philadelphia Orchestra :

…what orchestral playing they offer us. The lower strings in ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’ have an extraordinary richness, body and presence, and “Baba Yaga”, which opens the second side, has an unsurpassed virtuosity and attack as well as being of demonstration standard as a recording. The glorious body of tone, the richly glowing colours, the sheer homogeneity of the strings and perfection of the ensemble is a constant source of pleasure.

Of the performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird, Layton writes:

…Muti’s reading is second to none and the orchestral playing is altogether breathtaking. The recording is amazingly lifelike and truthful.

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Harry Nilsson / Nilsson Schmilsson – The Robed Man’s Masterpiece

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER brings Harry Nilsson’s indisputable Masterpiece of Bent Rock to life on this vintage copy
  • Both sides are remarkably good sounding, thanks to the brilliant engineering skills of Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown
  • A Better Records favorite (we give it Five Stars) that really comes to life on a superb pressing such as this one
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…it’s a near-perfect summary of everything Nilsson could do; he could be craftier and stranger, but never did he achieve the perfect balance as he did here.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies we played during our most recent shootout, and the scores w’ve suffered through before. Let’s face it: “Jump Into The Fire” will never be smooth and sweet; neither will “Down” on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc sound.

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Night Moves – MoFi Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classic Rock Albums Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

An audiophile hall of shame pressing and another MoFi LP reviewed and found to be tonally way off the mark.

The last time I played a copy of the MoFi pressing I could not believe how ridiculously bright it was.  

It’s interesting to note that some of the brightest records this atrocious label ever released came out about the same time as this one.

Aja is number 033

Night Moves is number 034.

Tea for the Tillerman is number 035

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Three dogs in a row, all suffering from the same problem: they’re way too bright.

Did MoFi buy some dull studio monitors right before they mastered these awful pressings?

Did a tweeter or two blow and no one noticed?

Did Stan Ricker have wax buildup in his ears?

What could account for records that are bright enough to peel the paint?

Some mysteries will never be solved, and I would bet this is one of them.

But really, what difference does it make? We should all know to avoid this company’s products by now, and that includes all three eras of records produced by this label:

That should pretty much cover it.

Never buy any record on this label (except the one we sell) if you are interested in top quality sound, and if you own any, get rid of them and replace them with records that actually sound good (like the ones we sell).

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Stevie Ray Vaughan – Beyond White Hot Stamper Sound

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Stevie Ray Vaughan Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Years ago we heard a copy sound so much better than any copy we had ever played that we gave it a grade of Four Pluses on side two.

Our lengthy commentary entitled outliers and out-of-this-world sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

Nowadays we often place them under the general heading of breakthrough pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, reveal to us sound that fundamentally changes what we thought we knew about these often familiar recordings.

When this pressing (or pressings) landed on our turntable, we found ourselves asking “Who knew?“ Perhaps an even better question would have been “how high is up?”

The Sky Is Crying is one of the best sounding rock records ever made, especially if you are fortunate to have access to the kind of big speaker system that can play it at very loud levels like we do.

The song Little Wing rocks as hard on this pressing as any song we’ve ever heard, with demo disc sound to rival the greatest rock recordings of all time.

The guitar solos on Little Wing are as huge and lively as any we have ever heard (assuming you have a copy that sounds like this one).

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“A very rewarding day spent visiting a remarkable piece of music.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Gustav Holst Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of The Planets he purchased many years ago:

Hey Tom, 

I spent the day today shooting out various interpretations and sonics of the above, and, I must admit, the Previn leads the field. More decay, transparency, sweetness, magic and imagination than the Mehta, Stokowski and numerous others. If you have an amazing copy, especially re side two, please put my name on it and let me know. [We do this shootout regularly and will be glad to hold the next killer copy for you.]

A very rewarding day spent visiting a remarkable piece of music. The Previn should be used for proper setup of a big system because it does everything right and demands the same of your system.

Best,
Phil
And thank you.

You are preaching to the choir on that one, loved it for at least the last ten years and can find nothing to compare with it.

I was very fortunate to see the work performed at Disney Hall.

No record can come close, but some can come closer than others. (more…)

Jimi Hendrix – Hendrix In The West

More of the Music of Jimi Hendrix

  • Both sides of this early UK import were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This is a fun live album with stellar performances by Jimi – the best of his many posthumous releases
  • The awesome version of “Little Wing” is just killer on this copy – it’s Jimi’s best performance of the song
  • 4 stars: “…it’s a hodge-podge, made of live tracks largely from 1969 and 1970. But it’s a bunch of great live tracks, including some real rarities… In the West is a great sampling of Hendrix’s late-period live material (and his sense of humor) making its long awaited appearance.”

We’re still surprised at how well recorded the album is. It takes a pressing like this to really show you the live Jimi Hendrix magic Eddie Kramer got onto tape. Drop the needle on “Little Wing” and you are going to be floored.

The size and space here are really something, miles beyond most. The resolution and clarity of the open live sound of this copy bring out all the instrumental textures and details of the recording like few we played. More importantly, the extended top keeps the highs from getting hard or harsh the way they do on so many pressings we’ve played.

As these performances are culled from different concerts, the sound varies a bit from track to track, but every track on here sounds good and the best tracks sound amazing.

Almost Famous

It’s hard to understand why this album isn’t more widely known. The performances are great and the sound is excellent for a vintage live recording.

Naturally not every copy sounds as good as this one. We heard a lot of pressings with too much grit and grain, and many that badly lacked presence. When I play a live album, I want to feel like I am there at the show (and to do that I set the volume accordingly, of course) but with most copies that just isn’t possible.

Thanks to Eddie Kramer’s amazing engineering, this album will have Jimi playing live in your listening room, and what a thrill it is to hear it all these years later (and on dramatically better equipment).

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What to Listen For on Carly Simon’s Debut

Hot Stamper Pressings of Singer-Songwriters Available Now

Too many copies we played erred on the hi-fi-ish side, with not enough warmth.  The copies that sound clean and clear just didn’t do much for us. They weren’t able to convey the intimacy and emotion of the music.

I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience playing CDs of some of your old favorites. You keep wondering why you liked the music in the first place.

Don’t blame the music. Blame those crappy CDs, or badly mastered records.

By the way, stick with Robert Ludwig-mastered pressings. Nothing else will be much good.

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Roger Waters – The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

More of the Music of Pink Floyd

  • Boasting two INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this original UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other The Pros and Cons… you’ve heard
  • Like the recordings of Floyd, the sound is big, with lots of energy, excellent midrange presence and real weight down low
  • A tough album to find with this kind of sound, which is why so few copies have ever hit the site
  • 4 stars: “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking continues to showcase Waters’ unprecedented knack of addressing his darkest thoughts and conceptions in a most extraordinary fashion.”

Let me tell you, it is no walk in the park to find a copy of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking that sounds as good as this one and plays as quietly. Those of you who like Floyd’s The Final Cut will probably get a lot out of the album. (more…)